When it comes to boat hacks, I have to think of the things that our students notice on a daily basis. There are always a few simple things that most people don’t think of and they’re really impressed. These are the top 5 things that our students ask about at Freedom Wake Park so they can start incorporating them into their boating routines.
Drop N Fill
Drop N Fill is our method for fueling our boats. We go through a lot of gasoline & we were getting pretty impatient with the siphoning process, let along holding full gas cans over the side of the boat. Drop N Fill is a self-supporting funnel that is also hands-free. We just start pouring the gas into the funnel and then drop the can in place. It’s gravity-fed and very efficient.
Hangtyte
Another issue that a lot of boaters encounter is related to their boat cover & the poles they despise underneath it. Hangtyte is a boat cover suspension device that helps prevent pooling water and mildew on your cover. It has a rope ratchet system that we loop over the tower, and then pull the ratchet tight. On our Malibu 25 LSV, we use 3 Hangtyte units – 1 in the bow, and 2 in the cockpit area. On our Axis A22, we have 1 in the bow, and 1 in the cockpit area. We find it to make the process of covering the boat easier, because no one has to crawl underneath the cover to deal with poles, and it keeps the cover pulled tight from above.
Wet board, bottom rack
If your boat has horizontal board racks, you may notice that sometimes when you put a wet board up in the rack after a set, sometimes it drips into the boat. We have just made a habit that dry boards go in the top rack, and wet boards go in the bottom rack. For some reason, the angles are just different enough, the wet board will not drip on passengers or phones or clothes in the boat if it’s upside-down in the bottom rack.
Turn the opposite way a wake surfer falls
Growing up, a lot of us were taught to turn the boat to the same side that a rider falls on. So in wakeboarding, if a rider falls going left to right, when you let off the throttle you should turn the boat to the right so the boat path is the most direct on the way back. However, this is not true with wakesurfing. Because of the way wakesurf waves form, if your rider is surfing on the right & they fall, your best plan is to let off the throttle and let the boat spin to the left. The surf wave will actually help the back of the boat turn more easily, and it will be less work for you as the driver.
How to tie a rope on the pylon at any length
Most wakeboard ropes have standard loops built in for the lengths where majority of wakeboarders ride. However, in the learning process, we often shorten the rope to lengths where there aren’t loops so it’s easier for the rider to get across the wake on a new trick. We don’t need a permanent loop there, just temporary. And chances are, we’ll want to tie the rope at a different length very soon after. Here’s how we do it: Find the part of the rope that you want to go around the pylon. Fold the rope in half there. Take the folded rope end and pull it around the pylon, and then under the rest of the rope. Lastly, split the fold and put it over the top of the pylon to tighten.
